Communications

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Records from 2015 and 2016 relating to or mentioning Andrew Puzder, including communications received from or sent to Mr. Puzder, as well as emails mentioning him.

I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written about the government and its activities for AND Magazine, MuckRock and Glomar Disclosure and have an open arrangement with each. My articles have been widely read, with some reaching over 100,000 readers. As such, as I have a reasonable expectation of publication and my editorial and writing skills are well established. In addition, I discuss and comment on the files online and make them available through the non-profit Internet Archive, disseminating them to a large audience. While my research is not limited to this, a great deal of it, including this, focuses on the activities and attitudes of the government itself. As such, it is not necessary for me to demonstrate the relevance of this particular subject in advance. Additionally, case law states that “proof of the ability to disseminate the released information to a broad cross-section of the public is not required.” Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Dep’t of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see Carney v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 19 F.3d 807, 814-15 (2d Cir. 1994). Further, courts have held that "qualified because it also had “firm” plans to “publish a number of . . . ‘document sets’” concerning United States foreign and national security policy." Under this criteria, as well, I qualify as a member of the news media. Additionally, courts have held that the news media status "focuses on the nature of the requester, not its request. The provision requires that the request be “made by” a representative of the news media. Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II). A newspaper reporter, for example, is a representative of the news media regardless of how much interest there is in the story for which he or she is requesting information." As such, the details of the request itself are moot for the purposes of determining the appropriate fee category.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Your request has been assigned tracking number 820477. When the agency begins processing it, you will be able to track its progress at www.dol.gov/foia<http://www.dol.gov/foia>. If you need to contact us about it for any reason, please submit your inquiry through miller.darlene@dol.gov<mailto:miller.darlene@dol.gov> or phone 202-693-5442. In addition, it would be helpful to include the tracking number in the Subject line of any submission to the agency or to have it available at the time of a call.

The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) received your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated December 16, 2016 for records from 2015 and 2016 relating to or mentioning Andrew Puzder, including communications received from or sent to Mr. Puzder, as well as emails mentioning him. The WHD National Office will process your request pursuant to the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552. Additionally, your FOIA request has been assigned the FOIA tracking number above. You may use the FOIA tracking number to check the status of your request on the Department of Labor’s FOIA Public Portal at http://www.dol.gov/foia/. Please refer to this number in any future correspondences about your request.

Our goal is to respond to requests as quickly as possible, in the order received and within the statutory time frame. However, due to the volume of requests received by WHD National Office, some of our processors have a large backlog of requests to process. Therefore, we may not complete your request within the statutory time period. We ask that you allow 30 days before checking the status of your request.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this matter you may contact WHD National Office as follows:

I am appealing the integrity of the search. The letter provided was only the beginning of the relevant correspondence, so unless the agency failed entirely to respond to the Senate's request for information, this is nowhere near sufficient. It also does not appear to have included a search of communications with Puzder or for emails mentioning him.

The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division received your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, sent December 16, 2016, for records from 2015 and 2016 relating to or mentioning Andrew Puzder, including communications received from or sent to Mr. Puzder, as well as emails mentioning him. Your request was assigned the FOIA tracking number cited above. While we are beginning to process your FOIA, due to the broadness of your request, it will take time locate the responsive records. Since what you have requested will require the many of WHD staff to extensively search through their e-mails, it may take several months to complete. Therefore, before we continue this process, we would like to know if you are still interested in receiving the documents you requested. If you are, please respond in writing within 15 business days from the date of this e-mail, if you would like to withdraw your request or if you are still interested.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this matter you may contact WHD National Office as follows:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 16, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #170072.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 16, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #170072.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 16, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #170072.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 16, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #170072.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

Thank you following up with this request. As you know, asking for e-mails that mention Mr. Puzder by name is expansive and covers the e-mail system of the entire Wage and Hour Division Staff (WHD). However, in response to your request, my supervisor forwarded your inquiry, to the Department of Labor IT (Department) to see if it was possible for the Department to search for the responsive records, since manual search of all of the WHD computers would take an enormous amount of staff time which could be overly burdensome.

According to the Department while this is possible, it may take years for WHD to sort through and review for release every e-mail with in the 2015-2016 calendar years. Bear in mind that these e-mails would or could include press releases, news articles etc. Therefore, you may want to narrow the scope of this request to just the National Office Political Leadership and the Senior Executive Service Staff which would take less time.

I am writing in regards to a FOIA appeal that you filed with our office on January 14, 2017 (No. 170072), asking for records related to Andrew Puzder. In light of the number of appeals pending in this office, we do not wish to expend our very limited resources on matters which are no longer of particular interest. Please let me know if you are still interested in pursuing this appeal.

This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting the Office of the Solicitor. If you think that you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately.

I have not received a response from you in response to my e-mail below. If you are still interested in pursuing your appeal, please let me know via e-mail or phone (202-693-5386) by January 15, 2018, or we will close this appeal.

This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting the Office of the Solicitor. If you think that you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately.

This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting the Office of the Solicitor. If you think that you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately.